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It's the birthday of writer Alexis de Tocqueville, whom the French government sent him to America, in 1830, to study the prison system. He spent nine months touring towns and cities and taking notes. A few years later, he published his famous book, Democracy in America.

During his tour, he was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked and wrote: "There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state."

Well, 185 years later ... and the middle class no longer have much say in their government.﻿

“Maybe every so often we can be on the side of the American people,” Rep. Jose Serrano said, “and not corporations.”
Those are fighting words — but unfortunately the House majority doesn’t seem to be heeding them.